What Matters Most: How a Small Group of Pioneers Is Teaching Social Responsibility to Big Business, and Why Big Business Is Listening

What matters most in business? Traditionally, the answer to this question has been straightforward: growth, quarterly profits, and shareholder value. Everything else was an "externality," which is economists' jargon for "someone else's problem." But as Jeffrey Hollender and Stephen Fenichell tell us, the bottom line isn't enough anymore. Not because corporations have suddenly become enamored of losing money, but because consumers, shareholders and the general public are demanding better behavior. They want businesses to be better citizens-to do more to make sure their products are healthy and safe, their manufacturing processes cause as little pollution as possible, and their employment policies are humane and not harmful to local communities. Across the country and the world, there's an evolving consensus that we need new standards to measure and reward business performance. The emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility is more than just a PR tactic, sales...